


Magister

by Aifsaath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Brotp, Fluff, He's a peanut, Obi-Wan is a huge nerd, Sort of hurt/comfort, Young Anakin Skywalker, but more like less hurt and more comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aifsaath/pseuds/Aifsaath
Summary: “Obi-Wan?”“Mhm?”“Why do I have to call you a master?”____A short story about one old word.





	Magister

“Obi-Wan?”

“Mhm?”

“Why do I have to call you a  _master?_ ”

Obi-Wan glanced up from his datapad, blinking in confusion. Anakin thought Obi-Wan looked rather like a new-born bantha with his spiky hair sticking into every direction; it was only three months after the battle of Naboo and Obi-Wan was still weird around him.

“And you question this eras-long tradition exactly why…?”

Anakin frowned.

“Never mind.”

The young man pierced him with a long inquisitive look. Anakin thought that his eyes were like Coruscanti sky, changing throughout the day. They were blue when he woke up, grey when he set for bed. Green when he gazed into the sunset.

“I know I am… not what you imagined when you accepted Master’s offer… I understand it is… difficult to view me as a teacher-”

“No, it’s not like that at all!” Anakin blurted out. “It’s just… the word. Back on Tatooine…”

“Oh… I am… so terribly sorry. I did not realize.”

“It’s alright. It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“No… But I am afraid that making the exception for you would be detrimental.”

“Detri… what?”

“It would, in the end, reflect badly on you and me. Amongst the Jedi, being allowed to call someone  _your_ master is the part of the decorum… and it is considered a privilege. Calling me anything else in front of the Council or the fellow Jedi in general would only start rumours about you being discharged from my apprenticeship. Or you being ungrateful – which is not true, I know, but the action itself would translate to others like that.”

“But I don’t like the word!” Anakin pouted. “I’m a person. Not a slave. You don’t own me, do you?” Anakin gulped. “Right?”

“No one owns you, Anakin.” Obi-Wan laid down the datapad and reached to clasp Anakin’s wrist. “I am here for  _you_. I am here to teach you, guide you, protect you until the time comes and you will be able to stand on your own. That is what  _a master_  truly is. Slavers only stole the word.”

“…Stole?”

“Twisted, misused, turned the meaning into something that should have never existed.  _Master_  is an old word, Anakin. Older than Hutts on Tatooine. Much older than Republic itself.” His tone changed, Anakin noticed. When Obi-Wan talked, he spoke in a sort of clipped way, the diction was quick and cutting clear.

But Obi-Wan the Storyteller enjoyed words; he pronounced them in a slightly elongated manner as if he could savour their taste in his mouth.

“The word is almost as old as the first flame that lit up in a cave in the time where humanity was only on the brinks of sentience. The language died long ago and very few words survived.”

“And  _master_  is one of them?”

“Yes, Anakin. Though, in its true form it is  _magister_.”

“But why is it  _master_  now?”

“Time does that to things, even words. Like wind turning stone into sand.”

“What did it mean then?”

Obi-Wan grinned.

“ _The one who is great_. Or  _big_ , depending on the translation of  _magnus_. Which should provide you some insight about what people used to think about their teachers and leaders. And what the slavers, in their foolishness, tried to present themselves as. _”_

“Slavers are… pricks.”

“I believe the better term is ‘subpar beings of justly deserved inferiority complex.’”

“It was a  _good_ word and they made it bad!”

“It is a taint.”

“I hate that word, I hate it.  But I think you’re sort of great and…” Anakin gulped. “I’ll try. At least in front of the Council so they don’t think you’re not a good teacher – ‘cause you are… Or… if you agree…”

“I – thank you, Anakin.”

The boy smiled.

“Obi-Wan?”

“Yes, padawan?”

“Does that mean that Master Yoda is actually  _Minister_  Yoda?  _The one who is tinier?_ ”

“Try to call him that and we are both exiled to the moon of Endor.”

“But I got it right!”

“I dread to imagine what a menace you will be  _after_  receiving actual lessons in Old Galactic.”


End file.
